Pursuing a graduate degree is an exciting step for personal and professional growth—but it also comes with its own unique set of challenges. One of the most significant involves balancing the relationships in your life while meeting the intense demands of academia. The latest episode of the Dad and Daughter Connection podcast, “Healthy Relationship-FINAL,” hosted by Dr. Christopher Lewis and guest Darien Wilkerson, dives deep into this crucial yet often overlooked topic.
The Graduate School Juggling Act
Darien Wilkerson, a CAPS counselor, introduces the concept that as graduate students, we’re individuals first and students second. Graduate school doesn’t happen in a vacuum—there are romantic relationships, family, friendships, personal time, and of course, academic responsibilities to juggle. Recognizing which areas of your life are receiving less attention is the first step toward positive change.
Why Relationships Struggle During Graduate Studies
The episode highlights a variety of stressors that graduate students face: assistantships, research deadlines, financial pressure, new social environments, and a lack of free time. These factors can take an emotional toll and make it harder to maintain meaningful connections. Darien Wilkerson points out that understanding why relationships become strained during this chapter is essential to managing the challenge.
Tools for Healthy Communication
Successful relationships rely on effective communication. Darien Wilkerson emphasizes the “Four C’s”:
- Clarity: Speak directly about your needs; avoid leaving room for assumptions.
- Consistency: Follow through with commitments.
- Compassion: Offer understanding when misunderstandings arise.
- Communicate with ‘I feel’ statements: This approach prevents conversations from becoming accusatory and promotes healthier resolutions.
The episode also draws from the work of relationship experts John and Julie Gottman, describing unhealthy conflict patterns—criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling—and exploring much healthier antidotes.
The Power of Boundaries
Setting boundaries is not about rejecting those you care about—it’s about creating a roadmap for how your relationships can thrive during busy times. The discussion encourages listeners to set boundaries around time, energy, and communication, while also offering alternatives to stay connected.
Managing Expectations and Creating an Action Plan
Open conversations are encouraged to renegotiate expectations with loved ones, shifting away from assumptions that create resentment. The key takeaway? Consistency is more important than frequency—regular, quality check-ins matter. The podcast closes with a reflective action plan, prompting you to identify one relationship to strengthen and consider which boundaries or expectations will help both you and your loved ones thrive.
If you’re a graduate student—or know someone who is—tune in to this insightful episode to discover practical strategies to nurture your most important connections, even during the busiest seasons of your academic journey.
TRANSCRIPT
Darien Wilkerson [00:00:01]:
Welcome to Victors in Grad School, where we have conversations with students, alumni, and experts about what it takes to find success in graduate school.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:12]:
Hello, good afternoon, and welcome. Thanks so much for being here today. I’m Dr. Christopher Lewis, Director of Graduate Programs here at the University of Michigan Flint, and really excited that you’re here today to be able to delve a little bit deeper into things that you can do to be able to find success in this journey that you’re on in graduate school. And today, I’m really excited to be able to have a friend from our CAPS office with us. Darien Wilkerson is with us. And we’re going to be talking about a really important topic, a topic that I think a lot of graduate students do deal with throughout their time in graduate school. And especially for— it could be at the beginning, but it could happen any time during graduate school.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:55]:
And that’s really talking about the relationships that that you have. It could be relationships at school, but it could also be relationships at home. It could be a mixture of all of these. And it’s important to be able to have coping mechanisms in place, things that you can do to be able to maintain those throughout so that you can stay healthy throughout your own experience as well. So I’m really excited that Darien is able to be here today. Feel free to use the chat today if you have any questions, throw them in there. We’ll be monitoring that, but I will turn it over to Darien. Darien, thanks so much for being here.
Darien Wilkerson [00:01:33]:
Yeah, Dr. Lewis, thank you so much for allowing me to be here. So hello everyone who’s able to be in attendance or will be watching. So like Dr. Lewis said, my name is Darien. I am a CAPS counselor here at University of Michigan Flint. Today we are gonna be talking about maintaining healthy relationships during graduate school. That’s gonna be one of those hot topics.
Darien Wilkerson [00:01:53]:
We are individuals first, students second. So we are trying to figure out how do we hold balance in everything. So hopefully we’ll be able to learn some things, you’ll be able to take away some things today. So we’re going to get into some quick objectives. So again, the goal is to help identify common interpersonal challenges that graduate students may experience while you’re balancing everything, the academic life, the personal life, then the relationship demands. We’re going to learn practical communication strategies, boundaries, boundary-setting practices, and ways to manage expectations in those relationships. Because Those are some of the hallmarks that we are going to be engaging in to try to make sure we’re finding that balance. And then lastly, hopefully be able to reflect a little bit about your own personal relationships and start to develop a plan of action to try to promote or sustain some of those healthy habits.
Darien Wilkerson [00:02:43]:
So those are some of those learning objectives for today. So again, like I introduced, the idea of graduate school is not just school. You’re not just going to the school and this is all you’re doing. Once you leave the school, you are an individual first, meaning you have other responsibilities, and relationships in your life. And graduate school can impact all those friendships, family relationships, romantic partnerships, a lot of different working relationships, and also personal time and energy, all those kind of things. So choosing to go to graduate school is a beneficial thing for your professional lives, but can also be impacted on your— on a personal level. So the goal is to try to find some management there. So I hold this here kind of as the graduate school juggling act.
Darien Wilkerson [00:03:29]:
You are in the center. And then you have these different spheres, the academic world, romantic relationships, yourselves, which is your mental health, right? Your self-care. And then you have your family relationships and your friendships. So this is the time I just like us to kind of take maybe 10, 15 seconds to kind of reflect when you’re at the height of your semester or even thinking about getting into the graduate program. What’s one of these quadrants? Which one of these do you feel like gets The, I guess the leftovers you feel like is really getting impacted because you need to know where that is first in order for that area to grow. So again, take that 10 to 15 seconds, which one of these kind of make the most sense for you? And again, each one’s going to have a different answer, but hopefully you can reflect and kind of take that with you as we’re moving forward. So again, why do these relationships become difficult? You know, as you’re thinking about your quadrant, you’re thinking about, yeah, maybe my family life or romantic life, it gets a little bit chaotic. And like, why is that? So again, being immersed in graduate school, there’s different responsibilities and demand.
Darien Wilkerson [00:04:32]:
So it’s going to introduce assistantships, comprehensive exams, research deadlines, academic pressure, less free time, financial stress. You might have to relocate at some point in the program, even getting into the program. You might have had to have chosen to remove yourself from your social supports and go somewhere else. And that introduces new social environments. And again, unpredictability, uncertainty. when it comes to your schedule and your career, that everything is new, you’re juggling a lot, and that can really cause some complications with how we are emotionally regulating with stress and how we are interacting with our people in our lives. So again, that’s why relationships become difficult because school kind of becomes this main focus and then relationships are still your priority, but you may not have the same bandwidth as you typically do when it comes to managing those stressors. So it’s kind of good to know why it does become difficult.
Darien Wilkerson [00:05:24]:
So again, as we’re talking about ways to manage, and maintain healthy relationships. We’re going to break it up into a couple of different categories. So the first one is communication. And yes, we all communicate, but are we really communicating at the same time? When we are in high distress with our demands of our graduate studies, we are going to come across a certain way that we probably don’t even expect. So it’s good to try to have healthy communication when we are navigating our graduate studies so our partners and our loved ones and our friendships can all understand that we are still trying to be our best selves with them. So The 4 C’s, it’s like I like to call it, it’s important to keep in mind when we’re communicating. Clarity, for one, you want to speak directly about your needs, about what’s going on. Do not leave room for assumptions.
Darien Wilkerson [00:06:08]:
Assumptions will definitely be a deficit in maintaining healthy relationships. So just be clear about what those needs look like. Consistency. Are you following through with your commitments, with your promises of those happening? And if they do, if they’re not happening all the time, that’s okay. We’re human, but we want to try to be as consistent as we can. Having compassion. Sometimes when we are engaging with our loved ones and friends and whoever, they may come across frustrated with us too, because maybe we’re not consistent, maybe we’re not being clear. So trying to have some compassion around the situation, both parties are wanting something mutual in this exchange.
Darien Wilkerson [00:06:45]:
And there could be room for benefit of the doubt. Maybe they’re, maybe they really do want this connection. Maybe they’re, maybe they’re not trying to be rude to me on purpose, right? They’re not trying to move me away from my studies to argue with me or to have conflict with me. They just want connection. So having that benefit of the doubt could be really beneficial. And then lastly, again, communicating, but communicating through the lens of clarity and through the lens of just I feel statements. I feel statements are very powerful. So if you are in a point of frustration or you feel like a need needs to be put into place, start with saying those I feel statements.
Darien Wilkerson [00:07:20]:
I am feeling this emotion when you are engaging in this. Certain behavior, right? And what I need from you, which is expressing the need, is et cetera. Those I feel statements are powerful because you are introducing those things without really name-calling, without pointing the finger. Like, you’re always doing this and you keep me doing this. And why, why are you doing that? Those whys and yous can really cause more friction. So you want to make sure you’re coming from a place that I feel because it removes that attacking nature. So we’re starting here with the communication because it’s very foundational. Another thing that we want to talk about is clear communication.
Darien Wilkerson [00:07:55]:
So I talked about a little bit last slide, but it’s going into this in more detail. So there’s something called the communication flowchart. So what is happening, what I need, and what I can offer. So again, when you’re navigating your graduate studies, do not lead with assumption. Just because people know you’re in graduate school, that does not mean they’re going to stop wanting to reach out to you and talk to you and do the things that they know you guys typically did before. So the assumption could be, well, they should know that I’m busy. They should know that I have all these different things going on. I don’t have the time for this.
Darien Wilkerson [00:08:25]:
Which all could be true. But you want to try to be clear with your communication and let them know what’s going on. So the encouragement is to say, this upcoming week will be demanding, so I may have less time than usual. Can we check in Wednesday and plan something for the weekend? So having those kind of conversations to let that person know, whether that’s a friend, loved one, family member, that I’m still here for you and just have a lot going on versus having this assumption. And that assumption can lead to more conflict. So having very clear and open communication can be a really good segue into having healthy relationships. I like to add this slide here too, because we’re talking about conflict, right? If it’s not healthy, you’re engaging in potentially unhealthy conflict with your partner, with your friends, with your loved ones. So I use this slide to talk about John and Julie Gottman.
Darien Wilkerson [00:09:16]:
These people are the founders of couples therapy, and they talk a lot about the Four Horsemen. And the Four Horsemen are conflict styles that we can engage in without meaning to, and that will be shown here on the left side. So criticism, verbal attacking, contempt, attacking sense of self with intent to insult or abuse. Like you’re basically talking down to that person. Being defensive, right? Having that defensiveness, trying to protect ourselves from any kind of attack. And stonewalling is basically like you’re not saying anything. You’re just removing yourself. You’re being distant.
Darien Wilkerson [00:09:49]:
You’re separating yourself from the situation. Anything on this left side, nothing gets accomplished, especially when we’re in graduate school. High levels of stress, expectation. We will probably Venture over to this side more than what we want. So we are trying to do the antidotes. The one thing to help with criticism, A Gentle Startup, talking about those I statements. This is how I’m feeling, right? You don’t want to talk down to your partner or to your friend or to your loved one. You want to build a culture of appreciation.
Darien Wilkerson [00:10:17]:
Remind these people that you care and that there’s positive qualities in the experience. Instead of being defensive, try to think and scan about You know, accountability and responsibility. Is there something that they’re saying that is factual in this moment? Maybe I haven’t been there for them. Maybe I have been inconsistent. That could be true. You want to take responsibility for those behaviors because that can lead into better conversation. Instead of stonewalling as a way to self-soothe by avoiding the conflict, instead of stonewalling to avoid, you want to try to do other strategies to manage your emotional regulation so you can come back to the person and have the needed conversation you need to have. So I like to put this up here.
Darien Wilkerson [00:10:58]:
The Gottmans do pretty good work around conflict management and resolution. So this is a slide to kind of introduce those tactics, especially in romantic relationships, but this can be introduced in any sort of relationship. Because you want to have healthy conflict. Do not stray away from conflict in general. You want to make sure they’re healthy. So those are some of the foundational pieces. So we’re going to talk now about boundaries. Sometimes these can be fun.
Darien Wilkerson [00:11:24]:
Sometimes they, they can be horrible. But some reminders about boundaries. Because Because in graduate school, you need to find a way to have boundaries with people. And because there’s going to be a lot of energy exertion in the program, there’s going to be a lot of different things you’re balancing. Boundaries are going to be your best friend. So a couple reminders: boundaries do not equal rejection. You are not rejecting that person being in your life if you’re putting up a boundary. What those boundaries are doing, you’re creating a roadmap in how that person can participate in a relationship with you.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:11:55]:
Due to Being—
Darien Wilkerson [00:11:57]:
having less time due to all these different commitments. These boundaries are going to be able to give us a blueprint in how we stay connected. Not rejection, but to stay connected. So overall, this can strengthen communication, trust, and respect, right? It doesn’t always have to lead to this disconnection. So this is another check-in I just encourage us all to do. When it comes to graduate school, there’s going to be 4 different areas of boundaries that we can think about. It’s going to be time, energy, obviously communication boundaries, and then space. So space is more like recharging.
Darien Wilkerson [00:12:29]:
So this is the time for you to reflect and think, which one of these do I need to do more of? Do I need to have boundaries better with time when you’re available? Do you need to have more boundaries around energy? What you can realistically give to somebody? How you’re communicating? When do you communicate with your communication boundaries? And then finally, space, like I talked about. What do I need to do to recharge? Just kind of think about that for a second and ask yourself, which one of these areas or multiple areas do I need to grow in when it comes to setting some more boundaries for myself? Because if you have these boundaries, solidified, that’s going to help alongside with healthy communication. So establishing a boundary. So a lot of times we can struggle with boundaries because not only that we don’t want to hurt that person’s feelings, we don’t even know what to say. How do I say this without being harsh? So hopefully this gives you a little bit of a blueprint around how you can establish a boundary with somebody. So truly this is the formula, right? You start with what you need, why it matters, and what I can offer. So you’re not shutting down connection. When you’re saying, when you’re bringing up a boundary, at the end, you can present a different alternative.
Darien Wilkerson [00:13:30]:
So for example, you can say, you know, I need Saturday morning to work on my paper. So you’re expressing your need because my deadline is Monday. So that’s why it matters. And then what you can offer is this. I want to, I won’t be available for, for brunch, but I love to meet Saturday evening. So introducing alternatives can actually be a game changer. It can let people know, like, you’re still connected, you’re still invested, and there could be a different pathway in being around each other. That can be happening in friendships.
Darien Wilkerson [00:13:55]:
That can happen within your family. That can happen in your partnership with your spouse or your significant other. So think about this formula: what I need, why it matters, what I can offer, as you’re presenting these boundaries in any part of your life, because that can hopefully help people feel less rejected or feel less negative around the interaction. And you feel a bit more better about yourself in the process because you said something. So there is that. Last one is about managing— for managing relationships is expectations. So again, graduate school can create a gap between what people expect than what capacity you truly have. And the goal is not to choose one over the other.
Darien Wilkerson [00:14:34]:
You’re not choosing your studies over these relationships. It’s about renegotiation throughout the entire process, and that leads to different expectations, right? So you want to start having conversations now. So as you enter— as we’re entering fall term, as we’re getting into the midpoint finals time, right, as you’re going on break and coming back for the spring term, have these conversations of expectation now so people are aware what to expect. And then I always like to put up there on the right, we’re talking about the expectation of flow. Like, which ones do you think your relationship’s fallen? If it’s A, assumptions, that can lead to misunderstandings and resentment. If you’re assuming that since I’m in grad school, these people should know these things like I’ve been talking about, that’s going to lead to misunderstandings. And those misunderstandings can lead into resentment or bitterness, and those relationships start to crumble. However, if you Choose option B, which is having conversations like we’ve been saying.
Darien Wilkerson [00:15:29]:
Those conversations can lead to clarity, and that clarity can lead into adjustment. And that’s all you’re doing. You’re taking what was and you’re shifting it to a new thing because you’re experiencing a whole new experience in your life with school. So try to lean towards option B with having conversations now, because that can hopefully lead to adjustment. So here’s some examples, right, when you’re shifting these expectations. So maybe prior to graduate school, You’ll be on the phone with an individual, with your family or with your friend 3 times a week. Now you’re in the— now you’re in grad school, you’re realizing I don’t have that energy. So the boundary would be set around that.
Darien Wilkerson [00:16:04]:
And then the alternative with expectations would be, I can’t call you 3 times a week, but maybe I can call you once, once a week. And even when we do hang out or we call, I may not be able to have all the hours in the day like I used to. Maybe it’s down to 30 minutes. And so then sometimes you might hang out with people in person all the time. That might have to shift to virtual platforms like FaceTime. And then lastly, again, this is more of the romantic side of things with like with your spouse or your partner. But if you’re used to doing weekly date nights, you might have to start scheduling out more. Maybe it’s every other week, still getting it down, but it’s not going to be the frequency is not going to be the same.
Darien Wilkerson [00:16:40]:
So the moral of the story is consistency matters more than volume or frequency. As long as you’re setting up a consistent pattern, check-ins of conversations, of hangouts, even if they’re only blocked for 30 minutes at a time and doing a different format, people in your life will still care and understand that they’re still making me a priority, even if it can’t be the same as it was before. So try to put it on your schedule. You put every— like we, as you’re in graduate school, you’re going to use your planners, you’re going to use all these things. Make sure you’re allocating time to relationships on your schedule. Put that down because that will definitely incentivize you and encourage you to still do these things and you won’t lose sight of it. So make sure you’re plopping that on your schedule as well. So the last thing is more like that action plan that I was talking about before.
Darien Wilkerson [00:17:25]:
You want to make sure you’re trying to optimize these relationships. So there’s, there’s 6 questions I’ll leave you with when it comes to maintaining healthy relationships. And think about your personal relationships now, right? There’s a couple slides that prompted that for you. But think of these 6 questions. The first one, what is one relationship I want to strengthen? Hearing what you heard in the PowerPoint, what is one relationship you want to strengthen? And then as you’re thinking about the PowerPoint, what’s one boundary you need to put up? As we’re thinking about our life, what’s one area in our life we need to put up when it comes to a boundary? And what about expectations? You know, we— it’s good to talk about it, but if we’re not talking about these things, might be good to consider what’s one expectation I need to communicate with somebody, which means you start to think about it. What are some conversations I’m not having and why is that? And then you want to start talking about or considering ways to protect your well-being. All these things can protect your well-being, but what are some other things that can protect your well-being? What are some hobbies? Or things you can get into again that can just, that fills you up and that can help you have optimal relationships too because you’re pouring into yourself and then you can pour back into other people as well. So with those first 5 questions, hopefully you can think of one small action you can take with you for this week as you’re considering these healthy relationships in your life.
Darien Wilkerson [00:18:40]:
So those are the 6 questions I leave you with as action plan prompted questions just so you can encourage yourself to really reflect and think about what’s the next steps look like from here? How do I, I know I need to communicate communicate better. I know I need to set up boundaries. I know I need to manage expectations in my life as I’m juggling graduate school. So what do I need to start with now? So again, that’s what I have for you today. This is just an information slide around CAPS. As you know, I work in CAPS, and we do a lot of great stuff in our department. So again, always feel like you can contact us. You can— we are located at 264 UCEN, University Center.
Darien Wilkerson [00:19:16]:
Our phone number’s here on the slide, 810-762-3456. You can call and make a consultation Refer— referral or consultation session and then move on from there. But we’re here for you and your— all your emotional and mental well-being. So that’s what I have for you today.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:19:34]:
Well, Darian, thank you so much for being here today, for sharing all of this. I think it’s really important to think about all of this and to review all this and really to take it all in to be able to make a plan for yourself. So thank you for being here, for sharing this, and I wish you all the best.
Darien Wilkerson [00:19:49]:
Thank you so much.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:19:50]:
The University of Michigan-Flint has a full array of master’s and doctorate programs if you are interested in continuing your education. Whether you’re looking for in-person or online learning options, the University of Michigan-Flint has programs that will meet your needs. For more information on any of our graduate programs, visit umflint.edu/graduateprograms to find out more. Thanks again for spending time with me as you prepare to to be a victor in grad school. I look forward to speaking with you again soon as we embark together on your graduate school journey. If you have any questions or want to reach out, email me at flintgradoffice@umflint.edu.
